Reliving some important years

"When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start right now." —Harry Burns, When Harry Met Sally...

March 16th 2005.
Not a special day or night.
If anything, it was the opposite.
I had a rough day,
you had a different idea of how to turn it around.

All these years, I have thought of our proposal as "not a great story".
There was very little romance,
very little planning,
all,
100% all us.

And then, someone I know through my daughter's old school lost his bride.
Lost the love of his life.
And I have been following his journey of healing and of trying to live on without her.
And on their last anniversary, he wrote about the day he proposed.
How excited he was, how nervous, how anxious.
And as he was down on one knee, they both realized that he was standing next to a dumpster.
And they laughed hard about this moment.
And then he quoted one of my favorite lines in one of my favorite movies
"When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start right now."

All of these years, that is what you have been trying to say.
All of these years when I tell our story, I shoot you a look.
A look that says, it was kind of a mess.
A look that says I thought you were kidding.
A look that says I was so upset.
A look that says I thought you were just trying to make me laugh.
A look that says I misread the whole situation.
A look that says you tried so hard to convince me.
A look that says it wasn't planned.
A look that says it was thrown together.
You have tried and tried to put that exact wording together.
You have said things like, the ring was burning a hole in my pocket.
I just needed to get it out,
it didn't matter that you were having a bad day
it didn't matter that I didn't have it planned
it didn't matter that it was thrown at you
I just needed to ask you because
"When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start right now."

And it took this, it took me reading the words of a man who lost what we have for me to finally hear you.
"When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start right now."

We have been through the easy
the it is just so easy to love you
you just make me a better person.
We have been through the horrible...
doctors visits that make you think, how can this be happening?
jobs and finding careers
fear of no money.
All of it, easy times to love, easy to count on each other.
We have been through the everyday of love.
Which means we have been through the hard
of careers
and homes
and living in chaos
and worry
and raising tiny humans
aging parents
and circumstances
and tiring moments
and exhaustion.
But, we always come home.

I have told you how our love is like a compass.
How it leads us back to our home.
Where we belong.
So we can spend the rest of our lives
together.

Yes, I would say yes all over again.
Yes, even knowing what is ahead.
Yes, I still love you, more than when it was easy
or horrible.
Yes, I will always pick you
so thanks for asking me.